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Pot Light Sizes: 4 Inch vs 6 Inch and How to Choose
For a standard eight foot ceiling, 4 inch pot lights are the common modern choice, and 6 inch pot lights suit larger rooms, taller ceilings, or an existing 6 inch opening you are replacing. Size affects the beam spread, how many fixtures the layout needs, and how the ceiling looks. Pick the size against the room and the ceiling height, then confirm the layout and the electrical details with your electrician.
What size pot lights should I use?
Recessed fixtures commonly come in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 inch sizes, and Sakura has recessed lighting collections for each of those sizes. The small end, 2 and 3 inch, reads as accent or task lighting, good for a tight row over a counter or a narrow soffit. The 4 inch size is the middle ground most people picture in a modern home: a smaller aperture, a cleaner ceiling, and enough output for general light in a normal room. The 6 inch size throws a wider beam and covers more floor per fixture, which helps in big rooms and tall ceilings. The 8 inch size is for large open spaces where you want fewer, bigger sources.
The practical way to choose is to start with the ceiling. Low ceilings and small rooms look busier with big fixtures. High ceilings and
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Metal Boxes: Electrical Box Types and How to Pick One
Picking a box for a job comes down to four things: what the box is made of, how deep it is, how it mounts, and how many conductors and devices it has to hold. Get those settled and the box type usually picks itself. The rest is matching the box to the location, indoors or out, dry or wet.
Pick the box from the job, not the shelf
Start with the cable or conduit you are running. Armoured cable and EMT conduit point you toward metal. Non-metallic sheathed cable and retrofit work often point toward plastic. Then look at depth. A shallow box in a thin wall leaves no room for conductors, and a deep box behind a tile or siding profile may not sit flush.
Mounting comes next. New work, old work, stud mount, ceiling mount, surface mount. Each has a box or bracket made for it, and forcing the wrong one costs time on the rough-in.
Last is box fill, which is covered below.
Metal boxes: 4-inch square and device boxes
Metal 4-inch square boxes and metal device boxes, the switch and receptacle boxes, are the usual pick with armoured cable and EMT conduit. They are also used anywhere a grounded metal enclosure is wanted, and where the box has to take some abuse on a commercial job.
A device box hol
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What Is Lumex Wire? NMD90 Sizes and Where to Use It
Lumex is a common brand name for NMD90 cable, the plastic-jacketed building wire used for branch circuits in dry, protected indoor locations. When someone says "Lumex wire" or "Lumex cable," they mean NMD90. It is the white, yellow or orange roll you see pulled through studs and joists for lighting, receptacles and small appliance circuits.
The name on the jacket is a brand. The cable type is what matters for inspection, for connectors and for the size you pick.
What is NMD90 wire?
NMD90 is a non-metallic sheathed cable made for Canadian building wiring. It holds copper conductors inside a plastic jacket, with a bare ground conductor running alongside them. The 90 in the name is the temperature rating of the conductors, 90 degrees Celsius. The jacket print shows the full CSA marking.
It comes as two-conductor cable, such as 14/2, and as three-conductor cable, such as 14/3, which adds a second insulated conductor for things like three-way switch loops. You can browse NMD and Lumex wire on our NMD and Lumex wire page.
What size NMD90 do you need?
The first number in the size is the conductor gauge. The second is how many current-carrying conductors are inside, not counting the bare g
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